the girl of his dreams
by MuslimBarbie
Summary: He does everything he can to adjust. And most of the time it's easy. This is what he wanted, after all–a human life, one he can share with his Rose. But sometimes, just sometimes, it's something else entirely. - 10.5/alt!Amy
1. One

Word Count: 765  
Disclaimer: Not mine, never will be.  
Note: Don't ask. Not really sure where this came from. Unbeta'd.

* * *

He tells himself that he's the Doctor. Because he is. He always has been. There is no one else in this world–in this _universe_–who can say that. There is only him. At least now there is.

He does everything he can to adjust. And most of the time it's easy. This is what he wanted, after all–a human life, one that he can share with his Rose. And they're happy. Married with a child and all. Living the life she's always dreamed of.

But sometimes, just _sometimes_, it's something else entirely. Sometimes he forgets, he wakes up in the morning and doesn't understand why he isn't in his TARDIS or why he can't find his Old Girl. Sometimes he feels so tired and old and _slow_. Sometimes he presses his hand against his chest and listens. He listens and listens and waits for the second heart beat.

He never hears it.

**.**

He dreams his other self's dreams. (At least he assumes they're his dreams, because he knows they can't be his.) Which isn't possible; at least it _shouldn't_ be. He doesn't know how or why it happens, but it does. The first hundred times, it drives him mad. He spends countless hours, nights, _months_ trying to solve the puzzle, never to make any progress. After six months, he gives up and just accepts the dreams.

In these dreams, he meets Liz the Tenth, he sees River Song and the Angels again, he flies the Pandorica into this TARDIS. He only remembers snippets of it when he wakes up, little flashes here and there (human memories are so..._fickle_), but there is always, and he means _always_, one thing that remains the same:

A girl.

He travels the universe with a girl with bright red hair and an attitude just as firey. She isn't impressed with his babblings and she flirts with anyone within her reach (which is usually him). She's loud and passionate and drives him absolutely mad; she's everything young and Scottish bottled into one ginger, leggy package. She's there–laughing at him, arguing with him, smirking at him–every night he sleeps.

Amy Pond, the girl of his dreams.

**.**

He never tells Rose about his dreams. Part of him knows that he should, but he doesn't.

He doesn't because he knows her and he knows she would want to know everything_. How is he doing? Where is he now? What adventures has he gotten himself into lately?_ She'd want to know every last detail about the man, the Doctor, who could have been hers. _Does he still think about me?_

_Or is there someone else now?_

And he knows he could never do it. Never look her in the eye and lie to her. And he'd have to lie to her. He couldn't tell her about the firey ginger who has taken over his mind. It would destroy everything, every happy, beautiful moment in their lives. And he can't do that. Not now. Not after everything they've been through. After all they've fought to have _this_ life.

So he keeps his mouth shut and never mentions the dreams to his wife.

**.**

He's eating his lunch at a nearby café when it happens.

He hears the chair slide and looks up just in time to see a young, attractive girl sit across from him. She gives him a tight smile and mumbles for him to _just play along_. He stares at her with wide eyes and a _what_ slips out of his lips. Because this isn't possible. This isn't actually supposed to happen.

She ignores him and lets out a chuckle (and it should sound real, but, for some reason, he can tell it isn't) and calls him a moron. She tells him some story about her cat, Bagels, which he barely catches. Out of the corner of his eyes, he notices a group of annoyed girls watching them and he finally understands. They glare at the back of her head for a second before they huff and turn off.

It barely takes her a moment longer to ask if they've left. He nods and she relaxes back into her chair. She looks up at him with a bright smile and, for a moment, he forgets to breathe, because there is absolutely no doubt left in his mind. It doesn't matter that this is the wrong universe, they're not the right people, that this probably isn't supposed to be happening, because he _knows_. He knows exactly who this girl is.

Because, you see, the Doctor's found his Amy Pond.


	2. Two

Word Count: 924  
Disclaimer: Not mine, never will be.  
Note: I think this will be around four parts; each will be around a thousand words.

* * *

Amy introduces herself with a bright smile. He grins back and before he can stop himself his old name falls off his lips. The Doctor, he tells her, that's his name. But she hardly seems phased. Quite the opposite, in fact. If anything, she looks intrigued; amused, even. A smirk tugs at her lips and she leans forward.

"The Doctor, eh? Doctor who?"

He smiles but he shakes his head and corrects himself; his name is John, John Smith. This time, she frowns, falls back into her seat and tells him that that's a rubbish name if she's ever heard one. She'd call herself Doctor too if she had a name as boring as that.

He tries to protest, but he can't. (Of course it's a boring name. That's why he's used it all these years; no one ever looks twice as a John Smith.) In the end he tells her to shut up. She tosses her head back and laughs. It's loud and a bit obnoxious and her ginger hair shakes around her, but somehow a bit magical and so _her_. He smiles.

He can definitely see why he likes this Amy Pond.

**.**

Rose is just finishing dinner when he comes home that night. She gives him a quick kiss and their son, Jack, laughs at the sight of his father. He grins and kisses his son on the head before he turns to set the table. Rose smiles, turns off the stove, and asks him how his day was.

A bit of guilt swells in his stomach but he doesn't miss a beat, and tells her it was the same as ever. Humany wumany and all. What else can he tell her? _Oh, it was brilliant, Rose. I met the girl my other self is travelling with now. Hm? How do I know that's her? Well, you see I've been dreaming about her for quite some time. But you have nothing to worry about._ Yeah, that would go brilliantly.

So instead, he smiles and changes the topic. He eats dinner with his family and puts his son to bed after. He walks around his house in pyjamas and a blue robe. He has a glass of wine and rereads his favourite Virginia Woolf novel while Rose watches some rubbish soap on the telly. They go to bed at eleven-thirty and he falls asleep with his wife in his arms.

That night, he dreams of Starship UK; of the starwhale and the girl who understands the lonely, old man better than he ever could.

**.**

He goes back to the café the next day and finds Amy there again. She doesn't miss a beat and, the moment she spots him, she comes over and sits down across from him as if they are the oldest and best of friends. She steals a few chips off his plate; he protests but grins and doesn't try to stop her. She just grins, pops a chip in her mouth, and asks him what's new.

It happens again the day after that and the day after that and the day after that, until it just becomes some sort of unspoken agreement that they meet for lunch every day. And, really, that's all it is: lunch. Nothing wrong with that. Just two friends having lunch. And they are friends. Of course they are. It doesn't matter that this is the wrong universe, that they're not travelling time and space together, that she has absolutely no idea about their other selves.

Because he's still the Doctor and she's still Amy Pond.

**.**

Sometimes he calls her Amelia, just because he knows she hates it. Every time he does, she whacks him on the arm and tells him to shut up. He just grins at her and before he says it again. She calls him an arse, but still laughs.

She never calls him John. He asks her about it once and she tells him that it's because it's a rubbish name, one that belongs to overweight middle-aged, balding men. Doctor, she explains, suits him more. She doesn't know why, but it just does. It has a nicer ring than John Smith too. Doc-_tor_. Much better, yeah?

He stares at her for a moment before a smile tugs at his lips. Yeah, he agrees, much better.

**.**

He thinks it might be the little things that amaze him the most about her. Like how her favourite colour is the exact shade of blue as his TARDIS or that sunflowers are her favourite because of the Vincent Van Gogh painting. The way her eyes light up anytime anything Roman is so much as hinted or the way she ends half of her sentences with a question.

How he sees her almost every day and learns all these details about her, but she still somehow manages to remain a mystery to him. How she never tells him about her family or her life in Scotland. Or how she never asks him about his personal life or his past. How she just seems to _know_ that those subjects are off limits.

It's the little things that amaze him the most. But they're also the things that make him the most nervous. That tell him that maybe now would be a good time to stop. That this may not end well if he doesn't. Only, the funny this is that it's the little things that draw him to her the most.

That makes it impossible to let her go.


	3. Three

Word Count: 1368  
Disclaimer: Not mine, never will be.  
Note: There will probably be one more chapter. Sorry this one took so long to come out.

* * *

Sometimes he finds it harder to sleep–to lay in bed beside his wife and let himself relax–and that kills him the most. He loves Rose–really, he does–and that hasn't changed. But sometimes he finds it harder to live this life. To follow the same routine in and out every day. To live this life, this life that is so…so…_human_. He has travelled the stars, seen the depth of the universe, flown across time, only to settle into a nice, little domestic routine. Whatever happened to not doing domestic?

Yeah, trick question, he knows. After all, he knows exactly what happened.

Rose.

And after all she's done for him, after all she's gave up for him, he knows he should do this much for her. He should want to do this much for her. He should be _happy_ to do this much for her. Because if he's with her, nothing else should matter. Not his past and certainly not whatever future his other self has. It _shouldn't_ matter.

And that drives the guilt even deeper in him.

**.**

One night, when he can't sleep, he takes a drive. He gets in his car and drives straight out of the city, away from the noise and the lights. He drives until he's far out enough that he can see the stars. He drives and drives, until he spots a young girl walking along the side of the road. Ginger and alone with her eyes glued to the sky.

He slows his car, rolls down his window, and calls out to her. Amy stops her walk and stares at him with wide eyes, clearly as surprised to see him as he is to see her. After a moment though, a small smirk tugs at her lips and she asks him if he's stalking her now. He smiles and tells her to just get in the bloody car already. She laughs and does.

Once they start driving, he asks her what on earth she's doing all the way out here. She doesn't miss a beat and tells him that she was just taking a walk. He frowns and reminds her that they are nearly an hour away from the city. She shrugs–so it was a long walk then.

He laughs. She's mad, he tells her. Mad, impossible Amy Pond.

She laughs, winks, and turns the radio on. She claims control over it for the rest of the drive and flips madly through the stations. They're half way back to her flat by the time she settles on one playing the Beatles. Her eyes light up and she sings along (awfully, off key, and to the wrong lyrics). He laughs and joins her, and they sing all the way back into the city.

**.**

Amy laughs as he pulls the car up in front of her flat and tells him that she wishes she could see them in concert. Actually see the Beatles, ya know? Imagine how brilliant that would be! Oh, he tells her, she'd love them. They're _brilliant_.

He expects her to laugh and make some sort of joke, but she doesn't. She just stares at him for a moment. She tilts her head slightly and gives him a look crossed between amusement and curiosity. He always says things like that, she finally says, talks as if he's actually done it. As if he really has seen all these amazing things happen.

The other him–the man he had been before, the man he isn't any more, the man he will never be again–would play along. He would wink and tell her that maybe he has, he would ask her if she'd like to see them. And he wants to, he _so_ desperately want to do it, but he knows that he can't so he doesn't. Instead, he looks down at the steering wheel and waits for her to leave.

After a moment, he hears her sigh. Before he can even open his mouth, she tells him not to laugh at her. She doesn't wait for his answer and confesses that she wasn't out there just because she wanted to take a walk. She went out there to, well, to look at the stars.

He gives her a confused look. Why would he laugh at that?

As it turns out, she doesn't just look at her stars. No, of course not. If she did, she would be normal and there's absolutely nothing normal about Amy Pond. She doesn't look at the stars, she _imagines_. She takes long walks out of the city so that she can see them clear enough to imagine what it would be like to be up there, to see them up close. To touch one, she confesses. She wants to touch a star.

A heartbeat barely passes before she shakes her head and looks down. Stupid, eh? He smiles and hakes her hand in his. She looks up at him with a startled look. No, he tells her, not stupid at all.

She stares at him as if she's trying to decide whether or not to believe him. He smiles at her and, after a moment, he feels her hand tighten around his and a small smile tugs at her lips.

He doesn't know how long they stay there for, sitting in silence, with their hands intertwined. What he does know though is that they shouldn't be staying at all, that he should tell her it's late and that she should get inside. That he should drive off as fast as he can and probably not look back. But he doesn't.

Amy moves first. She leans over to him and, before he can turn and face her, her lips brush against his cheek. They linger for a moment and then another, before she finally pulls back.

He turns to look at her and she smiles at him. Thank you, she mumbles.

**.**

_Married_. The word falls off of his lips without his consent. _Married_. Probably the worst word he could possibly say in response. _Married_. The word he probably should have told her from the very start. He's _married_.

Silence falls between them again, only this time it's different. It's hard, tense. He expects her to stare, to not believe him, to yell. He wouldn't be surprised if she slapped him; he probably wouldn't blame her either. But she doesn't. Instead she tosses back her head and laughs. It's not at all like her usual laugh; it's soft and sad and even a little bitter.

Before he can even ask, she makes her own confession: she's engaged.

_What_? His eyes snap open. _What_? He stares at her absolutely baffled. _What_? He glances down at her left hand; she isn't wearing a ring. Amy rolls her eyes before he can even vocalise his thoughts and points out that he isn't wearing one either.

He doesn't have a response to that.

**.**

Once again, it's Amy who breaks the silence in the end. She looks at him with those curious eyes of hers and a half broken smile and tells him that she never thought it possible. He frowns and stares at her for a minute before he finally asks her what.

"You're just as much of a mess as I am."

He stares at her, a bit more dumbfound that he cares to admit. She's already opened the door and out of the car by the time the weight of her words sink in. And he knows this is the part where he's supposed to tell her that she's not a mess–at least not compared to him–but he doesn't. She gives him a little wave through the window as she wishes him goodnight. She turns after that, climbs up the steps to her flat, unlocks the door, and goes in. She doesn't look back once.

He sits there for a moment, staring at her door. Finally, he shakes his head and sighs. He starts the car and drives off, but he doesn't go home. He can't. Not yet at least. Not when there's only one thought on his mind.

Amy Pond.

Mad, impossible, _engaged_ Amy Pond.

Oh, Doctor. What has he gotten himself into?


End file.
